There can be no peace with this Israeli government. This is my opinion and I cannot express it more clearly or succinctly, because what we are facing in Israel today is a fascist government that murders women and children, that includes neo-Nazis and religious extremists, or those who pretend to be religious to steal the homes of the Palestinians in Jerusalem, and all of Palestine, in religion's name. Jerusalem is lost, and the wise Muslims are focusing on the Holy Mosque because Israel is threatening it. However, they do not see that Israel is threatening the Holy Mosque in order to prevent them from noticing the ongoing Judaization of Arab Jerusalem, of which 80 percent is now in the hands of the Israelis. In related news this week, the Israeli government will build 700 new housing units in Arab Jerusalem, which means that it has demolished or it will demolish an equal number of Palestinian homes, and will displace them to make way for thieves to live in their place. The good Muslims are focusing on the Holy Mosque, while the terrorists are murdering Muslims from Iraq to Pakistan and Afghanistan and everywhere else. As for the Christian Arab minority, all it does is attempt to emigrate out of all Arab countries, to the extent that the population of Christians in the Arab Levant has shrunk from 20 percent a century ago, to about five percent now. This is one of Israel's fundamental objectives, because it is easier for Israel to garner the support of the Christian West if it managed to portray the conflict as one being between Jews and Muslims, if no Christians were present. Israel thus persecutes Christians in the Palestinian territories to push them into immigration, or entices them by assisting them in emigrating to Europe, the United States or Canada, and even offers them financial support until they settle and until jobs are secured for them in their new homes. Nonetheless, Arab Christians also face problems where there isn't any Israeli presence, such as in the Gaza strip, Egypt and Iraq. The best co-existence meanwhile can be found in Syria, Jordan and also Lebanon. On Christmas eve, I read in the Sunday Telegraph an illustrated full page report about Christian emigration out of the Middle East, especially Palestine, where I was stopped by a piece of information that was rather new to me: the London-based right-wing newspaper said that Orthodox Jews, i.e. the extremist religious zealots, spit on the Christian passersby if the latter were carrying Christian insignias such as crosses and crucifix necklaces. I will not curse again. Rather, I just want to say that the Palestinian territories are being lost and one day nothing will remain of them while we are around. While we are writing about Jerusalem and the Holy Mosque day after day, the situation is actually the same everywhere. For instance, Jerusalem has been expanded by the Jews and has now reached Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ. In fact, there is a report issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs which said that these Israeli measures have left the people of the Bethlehem province with only 13 percent of the province's original land, and that there are now 175 thousand Palestinians in Bethlehem and around it, and 186 thousand Jews in 19 settlements and outposts which did not exist prior to the occupation. The situation in both Jerusalem and Bethlehem thus is the same in all the occupied territories, and with the adoption of laws that restrict the freedom of the Palestinians of 1948, to the extent of prohibiting them from mentioning the Nakbah [the catastrophe], and demanding them to celebrate the establishment of Israel and chant its “national anthem”. Last month, the Palestinian Churches of all denominations issued a statement condemning the Israeli occupation, proclaiming it to be a “sin against God and against humanity”. The statement also called on all churches worldwide to support the Palestinians in their struggle for independence. This statement was similar to the one also issued by churches in South Africa in the mid-1980s, which appealed for the Christian churches worldwide, to support the campaign against the apartheid. That campaign ended with the fall of apartheid in South Africa. However, I do not think that this will be repeated in Palestine, because the adversary involved here is not only the state of Israel, but also the Capitol building, or the land occupied by Israel (as many American thinkers say and not just me), and where both houses supported in an almost unanimous manner every war against Palestinians, Lebanese and Arabs, surpassing the Knesset itself. There can be no peace with the government of Israel; when peace is no longer an option; the other option is a war that will destroy the temple on top of everyone, rendering the biblical myth a reality. [email protected]
